Noticed our culture’s zombie obsession? What does that all mean, politically or culturally?
I read this late last night and found a lot of it so interesting. But it was really late. 😉 And Halloween is coming and I feel particularly distraught over the state of our nation these days … So some of this off-beat analysis, which takes us through the modern-day presidencies (briefly) of Reagan-Clinton-Bush-Obama, the issues of gun control and personal responsibility and honor and the conservative ideal of building a just and honorable new society from the ground up, resonates with me.
And it’s written by an Army colonel who holds a masters in strategic studies from the U.S. Army War College. I suspect he’s writing novels on the side. 🙂
… Regardless of their various forms—running or stumbling, virally-induced or cause unknown—the zombie is an intensely personal, intimate nemesis. It is your friend, your spouse, even your kid, and it’s not going to kill you by radiation from a dozen miles away or via a huge claw that can’t even feel you squish as it stomps on you. A zombie is going to eat you alive, and linger while doing it. And it will all happen not in some ruined wasteland but in your own neighborhood, looking the same as it has always has except that some of its inhabitants are running from other inhabitants who want to have them for dinner.
… Perhaps our ids are onto something. After all, foreigners are relatively easy to deal with. They blew up our buildings, so we went over and slaughtered thousands of jihadis and their medieval buddies. Except for a few attempts with various levels of success, they have been ineffective here since. Those who try shooting up Americans for Allah last a few minutes at best before they get shot down. The foreigners are a threat, but that’s under control.
What is out of control, or what seems like it is out of control, is our society itself. A pervasive unease in America is deepening. It is a sense that our society has become unstable, that the normalcy we took for granted is gone and perhaps not coming back. There is a sense that at the other end of the tunnel we have walked down is chaos. We are at the point where millions look at Donald Trump as the solution to our problems, not a symptom. It’s that bad …..
…. Shrieking social justice warriors police our culture and campuses. The Internet shames anyone with an unpopular belief. Minor functionaries in remote counties get tossed into jail for disobedience.
Americans are turning upon each other. Some lives matter, others apparently don’t. The Bill of Rights is now negotiable. The White House issues instructions to sophomores to hassle their elders about Obamacare at Thanksgiving dinner. Red and blue people barely mix anymore—these days, would you bring up politics at a party where you weren’t sure everyone else was on board?
The question is, “What’s next?” Does this chaos get walked back, or does it get worse? Will we tear ourselves apart? Mutterings about violence, secession, and even civil war intrude from the margins into mainstream conversation. Have you heard them, too? That didn’t happen a few years ago. We certainly have the means for such self-destruction, and the anger out there certainly could fuel the will. But the apocalypse now is not an equal-opportunity Armageddon; when it comes to chaos, some ideologues are more equal than others. …
It may not be a zombie apocalypse, but much of America expects some kind of apocalypse. …
“Senate Democrats gathered Thursday on the steps of the Capitol surrounded by about a dozen armed guards to announce a new push for tougher gun-control laws.
The officers from the U.S. Capitol Police, who carried sidearms, were in addition to the regular detail paroling the Capitol ground due the large number of elected officials attending the event, according to a officer on the scene.”
The ZVW (zombie, vampire and werewolf) community is very concerned about the negative portrayal of their communities in popular culture. Clearly there is a need for zombie/non-zombie alliances in our schools. We also need to make sure no one tries to cure people of these “orientations”. No one should be allowed to discriminate against ZVW persons. Vampires must be allowed to work in blood banks and hospitals. Werewolves must be allowed to babysit Little Red Riding Hood.
“Have you ever — has she ever given a speech that you were inspired by? Does she have any good retail skills? Is she able to come across on TV? … A large majority of the country don’t believe a word she’s saying, for good reason. This week, her cynicism reached like an almost perfect Clinton level.” — blogger Andrew Sullivan on Hillary Clinton
The push for Paul Ryan is interesting. I have always liked him. He was the only Republican in Congress to make a comprehensive conservative budget proposal. That proposal contained serious free-market Medicare reforms. For that he was attacked from the left by the carpetbagger demagogue Gingrich even as he is now being attacked from the left by Trump. Conservatives need to understand that he is as good as we are going to get.
Ricky, I think you’re right, not sure I comprehend the conservative opposition to Ryan. ?? But I haven’t been reading a lot of stories on that topic in the past day or so, either.
I also find it very interesting that he doesn’t want the job. Being a Congressman while trying to raise a young family is a difficult existence. Fighting the Democrats, the press and the bureaucracy is tough enough without sniping from the Right. I hope he takes the job, but I wouldn’t blame him if he didn’t.
While Ryan is not a bad guy, there’s plenty to dislike. He’s more Boehner lite than conservative on many issues.
Let’s see…..
Supported TARP, the AIG and GM bailouts, as well as every other bailout to come before him in Congress
Wants the Patriot Act to be permanent
Supports the establishment wing of the party
Supports the establishment’s position on immigration, seen by many as Pro-amnesty
Collaborated with Dem Patty Murphy to raise taxes
He’s been the brains behind many of the fiscal deals made between Obama and Boehner
So let’s talk about the bailouts. Once the Bushes, Clintons and the Democrats in Congress coerced lenders into making foolish loans to minorities and others, would it really have been in our nation’s interest to let most of our financial institutions fail?
Would that have been conservative?
We really need to have s debate in this country about what is conservatism. On the budget, defense, tax policy and entitlement reform, Ryan’s policies are similar to Reagan’s. That is what I call “conservatism”.
People like Trump can screech about immigration and talk about how they are going to tell off the Mexicans and the Chinese while opposing real budget and entitlement reform. That is not conservatism. That is demagoguery.
Ryan made a comprehensive budget and tax proposal that included budget cuts, entitlement reform, and tax reform. For this he was viciously attacked by liberals and Republican weenies like Gingrich and Trump. Has any other Speaker candidate made such a proposal?
Without the tax deal, income taxes and estate taxes would have automatically increased by much more thanks to the sunset provisions of the tax cut signed by Little Bush.
With all the internal division, however, I don’t have a lot of hope (right now) that a Republican will win the presidency next year. And if it’s Clinton or Sanders or (fill in the liberal blank), we really will have to take a close look at how the church can thrive in what will be our modern-day Babylon.
Donna J, For the Rs to win, they must make it a generational race. Clinton, Biden and Sanders are old! Some of the leading Republicans (not Trump or Bush) are much younger. Ryan is 45 and that will help the narrative.
Donna, the Democrats could get better candidates if they picked three names randomly out of any phone book. I don’t think they have a whole candidate if they combine all three together. They have nothing at all. The Republicans, meanwhile, seem to have several good ones. (My own tentative favorites are Fiorina and Carson, but it seems like there are several that are better than we’ve seen in years.)
It is no coincidence that the anti-Hillary piece was penned by Andrew Sullivan who is a major spokesman for Organized Perversion. If Biden gets in, Hillary is going to try to paint him as a racist, citing a variety of old gaffes or semi-conservative votes. Biden will in turn claim to be the most homosexual-friendly candidate, which is a big boon for fundraising.
Karen, Where you live there are white heterosexually married Democrats. They are turning to Sanders. In the South, about 99% of white heterosexually married people are Republicans. The blacks steal Sanders’ microphone before he can make his socialist appeal. The single white women feel sorry for and identify with Hillary. Biden is going after the homosexuals, so there aren’t many Democrats left for old Sanders.
Wandering Views 
OK, I’ll start.
Noticed our culture’s zombie obsession? What does that all mean, politically or culturally?
I read this late last night and found a lot of it so interesting. But it was really late. 😉 And Halloween is coming and I feel particularly distraught over the state of our nation these days … So some of this off-beat analysis, which takes us through the modern-day presidencies (briefly) of Reagan-Clinton-Bush-Obama, the issues of gun control and personal responsibility and honor and the conservative ideal of building a just and honorable new society from the ground up, resonates with me.
And it’s written by an Army colonel who holds a masters in strategic studies from the U.S. Army War College. I suspect he’s writing novels on the side. 🙂
http://thefederalist.com/2015/10/09/heres-whats-behind-our-obsession-with-zombies/
___________________________________________
… Regardless of their various forms—running or stumbling, virally-induced or cause unknown—the zombie is an intensely personal, intimate nemesis. It is your friend, your spouse, even your kid, and it’s not going to kill you by radiation from a dozen miles away or via a huge claw that can’t even feel you squish as it stomps on you. A zombie is going to eat you alive, and linger while doing it. And it will all happen not in some ruined wasteland but in your own neighborhood, looking the same as it has always has except that some of its inhabitants are running from other inhabitants who want to have them for dinner.
… Perhaps our ids are onto something. After all, foreigners are relatively easy to deal with. They blew up our buildings, so we went over and slaughtered thousands of jihadis and their medieval buddies. Except for a few attempts with various levels of success, they have been ineffective here since. Those who try shooting up Americans for Allah last a few minutes at best before they get shot down. The foreigners are a threat, but that’s under control.
What is out of control, or what seems like it is out of control, is our society itself. A pervasive unease in America is deepening. It is a sense that our society has become unstable, that the normalcy we took for granted is gone and perhaps not coming back. There is a sense that at the other end of the tunnel we have walked down is chaos. We are at the point where millions look at Donald Trump as the solution to our problems, not a symptom. It’s that bad …..
…. Shrieking social justice warriors police our culture and campuses. The Internet shames anyone with an unpopular belief. Minor functionaries in remote counties get tossed into jail for disobedience.
Americans are turning upon each other. Some lives matter, others apparently don’t. The Bill of Rights is now negotiable. The White House issues instructions to sophomores to hassle their elders about Obamacare at Thanksgiving dinner. Red and blue people barely mix anymore—these days, would you bring up politics at a party where you weren’t sure everyone else was on board?
The question is, “What’s next?” Does this chaos get walked back, or does it get worse? Will we tear ourselves apart? Mutterings about violence, secession, and even civil war intrude from the margins into mainstream conversation. Have you heard them, too? That didn’t happen a few years ago. We certainly have the means for such self-destruction, and the anger out there certainly could fuel the will. But the apocalypse now is not an equal-opportunity Armageddon; when it comes to chaos, some ideologues are more equal than others. …
It may not be a zombie apocalypse, but much of America expects some kind of apocalypse. …
______________________________________
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Guns for we, but not for thee……
Democrats come out to demand gun control….. while surrounded by armed guards.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/oct/8/armed-guards-protect-senate-democrats-they-demand-/
“Senate Democrats gathered Thursday on the steps of the Capitol surrounded by about a dozen armed guards to announce a new push for tougher gun-control laws.
The officers from the U.S. Capitol Police, who carried sidearms, were in addition to the regular detail paroling the Capitol ground due the large number of elected officials attending the event, according to a officer on the scene.”
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Interesting zombie article. I hate zombies.
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The ZVW (zombie, vampire and werewolf) community is very concerned about the negative portrayal of their communities in popular culture. Clearly there is a need for zombie/non-zombie alliances in our schools. We also need to make sure no one tries to cure people of these “orientations”. No one should be allowed to discriminate against ZVW persons. Vampires must be allowed to work in blood banks and hospitals. Werewolves must be allowed to babysit Little Red Riding Hood.
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Some of you thought I was kidding.
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/421108/university-researchers-we-have-accept-people-who-identify-real-vampires-katherine
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“Have you ever — has she ever given a speech that you were inspired by? Does she have any good retail skills? Is she able to come across on TV? … A large majority of the country don’t believe a word she’s saying, for good reason. This week, her cynicism reached like an almost perfect Clinton level.” — blogger Andrew Sullivan on Hillary Clinton
http://www.breitbart.com/video/2015/10/09/andrew-sullivan-hillary-a-unbelievably-useless-terrible-candidate-talent-free-hack/
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The push for Paul Ryan is interesting. I have always liked him. He was the only Republican in Congress to make a comprehensive conservative budget proposal. That proposal contained serious free-market Medicare reforms. For that he was attacked from the left by the carpetbagger demagogue Gingrich even as he is now being attacked from the left by Trump. Conservatives need to understand that he is as good as we are going to get.
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Ricky, I think you’re right, not sure I comprehend the conservative opposition to Ryan. ?? But I haven’t been reading a lot of stories on that topic in the past day or so, either.
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I also find it very interesting that he doesn’t want the job. Being a Congressman while trying to raise a young family is a difficult existence. Fighting the Democrats, the press and the bureaucracy is tough enough without sniping from the Right. I hope he takes the job, but I wouldn’t blame him if he didn’t.
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And it sounds like his family is not in Washington, which would make it even harder. 😦
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While Ryan is not a bad guy, there’s plenty to dislike. He’s more Boehner lite than conservative on many issues.
Let’s see…..
Supported TARP, the AIG and GM bailouts, as well as every other bailout to come before him in Congress
Wants the Patriot Act to be permanent
Supports the establishment wing of the party
Supports the establishment’s position on immigration, seen by many as Pro-amnesty
Collaborated with Dem Patty Murphy to raise taxes
He’s been the brains behind many of the fiscal deals made between Obama and Boehner
There’s more too, but you get the point.
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So let’s talk about the bailouts. Once the Bushes, Clintons and the Democrats in Congress coerced lenders into making foolish loans to minorities and others, would it really have been in our nation’s interest to let most of our financial institutions fail?
Would that have been conservative?
We really need to have s debate in this country about what is conservatism. On the budget, defense, tax policy and entitlement reform, Ryan’s policies are similar to Reagan’s. That is what I call “conservatism”.
People like Trump can screech about immigration and talk about how they are going to tell off the Mexicans and the Chinese while opposing real budget and entitlement reform. That is not conservatism. That is demagoguery.
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Ryan made a comprehensive budget and tax proposal that included budget cuts, entitlement reform, and tax reform. For this he was viciously attacked by liberals and Republican weenies like Gingrich and Trump. Has any other Speaker candidate made such a proposal?
Without the tax deal, income taxes and estate taxes would have automatically increased by much more thanks to the sunset provisions of the tax cut signed by Little Bush.
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Seems like Ryan is a good choice to me.
With all the internal division, however, I don’t have a lot of hope (right now) that a Republican will win the presidency next year. And if it’s Clinton or Sanders or (fill in the liberal blank), we really will have to take a close look at how the church can thrive in what will be our modern-day Babylon.
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Donna J, For the Rs to win, they must make it a generational race. Clinton, Biden and Sanders are old! Some of the leading Republicans (not Trump or Bush) are much younger. Ryan is 45 and that will help the narrative.
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Donna, the Democrats could get better candidates if they picked three names randomly out of any phone book. I don’t think they have a whole candidate if they combine all three together. They have nothing at all. The Republicans, meanwhile, seem to have several good ones. (My own tentative favorites are Fiorina and Carson, but it seems like there are several that are better than we’ve seen in years.)
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It is no coincidence that the anti-Hillary piece was penned by Andrew Sullivan who is a major spokesman for Organized Perversion. If Biden gets in, Hillary is going to try to paint him as a racist, citing a variety of old gaffes or semi-conservative votes. Biden will in turn claim to be the most homosexual-friendly candidate, which is a big boon for fundraising.
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I have seen a lot of support for Sanders. The friends who used to like Hillary have traded her in for him.
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Karen, Where you live there are white heterosexually married Democrats. They are turning to Sanders. In the South, about 99% of white heterosexually married people are Republicans. The blacks steal Sanders’ microphone before he can make his socialist appeal. The single white women feel sorry for and identify with Hillary. Biden is going after the homosexuals, so there aren’t many Democrats left for old Sanders.
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My sense is that Hillary is losing a lot of the more leftward leaning Dems —
But the Democrats also have become adept at turning out voters (and ‘voters’) so there is that also to contend with.
I still like Rubio and Carson, but it’ll be a dog fight either way, the Dems already are ginning up registration campaigns
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Unless Republicans can unify and get behind the nominee, whomever it is, and seriously turn out voters …
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